August 31–September 6

Week 10: “Living The Gospel”

 

This week’s lesson starts out with a very profound and very simple statement followed by a question:

But the Bible tells us repeatedly that we are sinners saved by God’s grace through Jesus and His substitutionary death for us on the cross.

What could we possibly add to this in any way? Or, as Ellen G. White has written: “If you would gather together everything that is good and holy and noble and lovely in man and then present the subject to the angels of God as acting a part in the salvation of the human soul or in merit, the proposition would be rejected as treason.”—Faith and Works, p. 24.

Sadly, the EGW quote is just a smoke-screen. Up front, it is simple and true, but the section later this week called “Grace and Good Works” completely reverses it and shows the true nature of Ellen White’s theology. 

“For God So Loved . . .”

The second paragraph starts out: 

“Justification is really not just about getting our sins forgiven. “

Now, this is very true but it goes on to add good works to the process while totally ignoring the very core of justification—that of making our dead spirits alive in Christ. As discussed in last week’s lesson, this is a profound truth that is incomprehensible to those who deny the very existence of a soul.

 

Compassion and Repentance

Once again, a pet theory of Adventist theology is unnecessarily inserted here in the assumption that the members in the pews agree it’s true:

The intermingled stories of salvation and the great controversy call us to acknowledge a truth about life that is foundational for our understanding of our world and ourselves, and that is: we and our world are fallen, broken, and sinful. Our world is not what it was created to be, and though we still bear the image of the God who created us, we are part of the world’s brokenness.

While one little phrase in the middle: “we and our world are fallen, broken, and sinful” is certainly true, that doesn’t make the rest of it true.

How many Adventist members actually know what the so-called “great controversy entails? I certainly didn’t until I was a ‘former’ for many years—at which time I had learned more about Adventist beliefs and doctrines than I ever knew when I was a member.

How many know that it is so much more than just the devil trying to get us away from God?

How many know that the Great Controversy paradigm starts with the claim that Jesus is a created being? That when God elevated Him to be equal with God and ‘consulted’ with Him about creating this world, Lucifer became jealous that he wasn’t also consulted and started rebelling? 

How many know that the whole basis of Lucifer’s rebellion according to the great controversy was based not only on that jealousy, but also on the idea that God was unfair to demand obedience to the law?That our role is now to prove by our law-keeping that God was not unjust? That we will be able to perfectly keep the law of God if we just have enough faith?

How many know the great controversy dictates that during the end-times, perfect law-keeping is a requirement in order to keep one’s salvation?

No, I doubt most of the average members know the whole sordid house of cards on which the un-biblical theory is based.

So, from time to time, it is inserted, usually out of place, as a way of enforcing it in the minds of the believers.

 

Grace and Good Works

From the lesson:

“Selfishness, greed, meanness, prejudice, ignorance, and carelessness are at the root of all the world’s evil, injustice, poverty, and oppression.”

Actually, those are just some of the results of sin. Sin is the root of all the evil. It’s as if the author is saying that if we would all be a little less selfish, greedy and mean to others, there would be no evil or poverty.

But then, we have a problem. In the lesson:

“Again, we do not do good works—care for the poor, lift up the oppressed, feed the hungry—in order to earn salvation or standing with God. In Christ, by faith, we have all the standing with God we will ever need.”

And in the next paragraph:

“When we look at the Cross, we see the great and complete sacrifice done for us and realize that we can add nothing to what it offers us in Christ. “

And here is the problem for the Seventh-day Adventist. In order to become a member through baptism, one is asked to affirm one’s belief in several key doctrines of the church. Among them is the belief that Ellen White is a prophet from God—by implication, she says what God told her, and, since God cannot lie, therefore everything she says must be true. In fact, she makes that claim for herself:

“While I am able to do this work, the people must have these things to revive past history, that they may see that there is one straight chain of truth, without one heretical sentence, in that which I have written. This, I am instructed, is to be a living letter to all in regard to my faith.” {Lt329a-1905.3}

So, since she claims a straight chain of truth without any heretical sentence (lie or error), for the moment we will set aside the many, many ways that she contradicts herself and the Bible and we will look here at just a few of the things that she wrote where she clearly outlines what must be added to what Jesus did for us.

1. “But all cannot enter. Some are left outside with their children, whose characters have not been transformed by submission to the will of God. A hand is raised, and the words are spoken, “You have neglected home duties. You have failed to do the work that would have fitted the soul for a home in heaven. You cannot enter.” The gates are closed to the children because they have not learned to do the will of God, and to parents because they have neglected the responsibilities resting upon them.” Child Guidance, p. 13

The parent must do the work in raising the child to fit the child’s soul for heaven. So here, the first addition is that of “character transformation” of the child so he will qualify for heaven.

2. “There are conditions to our receiving justification and sanctification, and the righteousness of Christ. I know your meaning, but you leave a wrong impression upon many minds. While good works will not save even one soul, yet it is impossible for even one soul to  be  saved  without  good works. Selected Messages, Bk. 1, p. 377.

So we see the second required addition—that of good works.

3. “If we could realize that the habits we form in this life will affect our eternal interests, that our eternal destiny depends upon strictly temperate habits, we would work to the point of strict temperance in eating and drinking” (3T 489).

The third addition—strict temperance.

4. “Christ looks at the spirit, and when He sees us carrying our burden with faith, His perfect holiness atones for our shortcomings. When we do our best, He becomes our righteousness. EGW, Letter 22, 1889.

This one says that we have to do our best before God will even become our righteousness. So this adds our best effort even before the salvation is granted.

5. To man, the crowning work of creation, God has given power to understand His requirements, to comprehend the justice and beneficence of His law, and its sacred claims upon him; and of man unswerving obedience is required. {PP 52.3}

Here she is adding perfect obedience.

6. “They declare that we have only to believe on Jesus Christ, and that faith is all-sufficient; that the righteousness of Christ is to be the sinner’s credentials; that this imputed righteousness fulfils the law for us, and that we are under no obligation to obey the law of God. This class claim that Christ came to save sinners, and that he has saved them. “I am saved,” they will repeat over and over again. But are they saved while transgressing the law of Jehovah?—No; for the garments of Christ’s righteousness are not a cloak for iniquity. Such teaching is a gross deception, and Christ becomes to these persons a stumbling-block as he did to the Jews,—to the Jews because they would not receive him as their personal Saviour; to these professed believers in Christ, because they separate Christ and the Law, and regard faith as a substitute for obedience. They separate the Father and the Son, the Saviour of the world. Virtually they teach, both by precept and example, that Christ, by his death, saves men in their transgressions.” {ST February 25, 1897, par. 7}

This adds obeying the law as a necessary addition in order to be saved. Faith isn’t enough, you have to be good too.

So in just the 6 quotes above, we have all of these requirements added to what Christ has done:

1. Character transformation by our own efforts.
2. Good works.
3. Strict temperance.
4. Doing our best before God will even add His righteousness.
5. Perfect obedience.
6. Law-keeping.

So, which is it? “We can add nothing” to our salvation as stated in the lesson? Or do you believe EGW and try to add those 6 things listed above in fear of losing out on salvation if you don’t?

 

Our Common Humanity

Overall this lesson is very good. However, I do have some reservation about one phrase used by the author: “global human family”.

While this is a seemingly innocuous phrase that may be used to include all people on the earth, when considered in addition to the other little phrases sprinkled throughout the lesson, it sounds like the currently popular “social justice” movement that is no gospel at all. Additionally, it also expresses support for global government which itself is strictly against God’s commands.

It just isn’t clear if the author is trying to appease the politically correct crowd by using this phrase or if he just uses it to mean all of humanity in general.

 

The Everlasting Gospel

In this section we once again stray from the Bible and into Adventist beliefs:

“Read Revelation 14:6, 7. How is the common understanding of the gospel—most commonly summarized by John 3:16—included in the angel’s specific message in verse 7?”

When we compare Revelation 14:6, 7 with John 3:16, we see that there is no common ground here. So first, let’s read them:

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Revelation 14:7 and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.”

John 3:16 is presenting the gospel in its most basic form—God’s love for us led Him to give us a way to eternal life.

Revelation 14:7 on the other hand, is a warning that will be given during the Tribulation, during the time of God’s wrath against those who would harm Israel and those who reject Jesus, the only way to eternal life. It’s the warning of judgment on those who reject salvation.

The lesson goes on to say:

“Hence, even amid the issues regarding true and false worship, and persecution (See Rev. 1:8-12), God will have a people who will stand for what is right, for the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, even amid the worst of evil.”

This interpretation is an Adventist construct in an effort to put themselves, and only themselves, on the side of God during the Tribulation. Only those who worship on the “right” day will be saved. This view can’t be supported biblically unless one re-writes, rearranges, adds-to, and removes some of what the Bible says. 

This description is in no way the gospel we are called to tell to those who are lost. In fact, it is exactly what Paul is talking about in Galatians 1:6-9:

 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

In verse 8, the “gospel he had preached to them“ is found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-9.

The first question at the end of Friday’s lesson says:

“In seeking to do good works and help others, how can we resist the temptation to think that this somehow makes us better and gains us merit that God should recognize?”

How would you answer that based on her statement quoted above: “While good works will not save even one soul, yet it is impossible for even one soul to  be  saved  without  good works” ?

If those good works are something without which not one soul will be saved, that makes it a merit that God must recognize in order to deem that person to be “worth saving”. †